Yikes, this Girl can Spend Money at a Ghana Market

Wednesday is market day in Mampong, Ghana, on this day the neighboring villages come to and sell their goods. Generally, this is a huge flea market, mostly for foods grown locally, but also full of cheap Chinese products and used clothing from Europe and the USA.

Bah likes to make this Bissap tea, and I have decided it would be fun to make a video of her making it step by step.

The vendor says 30,000 for the large bowl, then Bah says,
"Pay the girl."
I am thinking,
"How much is 30,000?"
Bah has no idea, she just wants me to give her money.

This budget should be called,
"I am too lazy to figure it out Budget."
Or
"I am the bad guy, 24 hours per day."

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I am glad I am a Math Whiz
The number of calculations I needed to make to purchase this Bissap Tea in a grown up and living in my means manner was radical.

1. Convert 30,000 to 3 Cedis
2. Convert 3 Cedis to two Dollars USD.
3. Calculate how much Bah would drink.
4. Compare the price to buying from a street vendor.
5. What is our daily expenditures for food, and what percentage would this be?
6. How long this last outside a fridge, and what percentage of spoilage.
7. Is this just a splurge decision, does she need the large or small, why doe she want the large?
8. Why is the Twi vendor still using old money terms, after four years, there is no old money around.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghana_cedi

That was painful for me, all done in less than 10 seconds, and in a nutshell the budget problems of the world. Life is too complicated, therefore just spend money until you run out.

I am tired of daily budgeting of my wife
Ok, Bah is not my wife, and I am not wanting to get married, however, I am living with a women that is functioning as a wife. I am 100 percent sure that 90 percent of the people reading this have the same problem, one of the partners in the relationship, spends money without thinking.

600 or 800 Dollar per month Budget
I am living easily within my goal of a 500 dollars per month or 1000 for the two of us. She cannot do any real damage, she just makes a 600 dollar budget rise to 800, and if I do not slow her down it will continue to climb.

Does your monthly budget feel like it is continually climbing?
I have not had this feeling in 13 years, and truly grounds for divorce. I am not going to sit around thinking about money every day of my life. Please do not misunderstand me, Bah is 100 times better than the average African girl, the problem is I am living with this one, she does have a clue about money.

My Possible Solutions:

1. Give her X amount of money per day and continue to walk around with her in the village whereby she can ask for money and I refuse.

2. Giver her X amount of money per day and stop walking around with her in the village, and because I am not with her, she cannot ask for money.

3. Make her get a job, and say spend your own money.

I am going to implement solution number 1 today. I am going to give her X amount of money in the morning and tell her there is no more. I am going to give her 5 times the amount of money the average girl in Ghana has to spend per day. She will receive a lump sum for the week, this seems fair to me, or at least I will not feel guilty enforcing it.

Boundaries
I see her as normal human, she believes she is doing me a favor by buying things that she eats, which is truly fun human nature to observe and typical. I have been negotiating with her now for months, we have reached some middle ground where we can live together. I am going to convert a spongy money boundary to a inflexible boundary today, and tell her the consequences. I want to be proud of her, I want to know she can manage money, at least on daily or weekly level. I plan to give her a weekly amount, so I am not micromanaging her day. Explaining consequences of personal boundary violations makes the majority of people angry with me, so I am not going to explain. What would you do if you gave a fair budget to a person, and they refused to live within that budget?

I may need to move because of Electrical Outages
I have an Internet business to run, I also want to work more than normal to finish writing a book. Generally, from about 10 am to about 4-5 pm, Monday thru Friday the electricity is cut in Mampong, Ghana. More or less the time when I want to work, there is no electricity to power my computer, I need four laptop batters, and I only have two.

Generally as a rule of thumb, a person needs to have enough batteries to last twice as long as the electricity is off per day. Here in Mampong it is roughly six hours per day of outage, therefore I need 12 hours of battery time, I presently have four. Then if I have sufficient batteries, up pops the problem, how to charge them easily.List of Electrical Outage Day by Country

A New Experience for Africa - Hair in Drain
I take a shower and wash my hair, while Bah does not wash her hair, she is complaining because there is hair in the drain. This is a new experiences for her, effectively in day to day life in Africa, all the people are bald, the drain are clean.